To Have and to Hold (30 page)

He stood there in his socks, saying nothing.

She tried again. ‘She was only trying to help. Look, phone her.'

‘What?' He stared at her, his face colouring.

‘Have a chat. Thank her for the pram.'

He didn't reply.

‘Well, ring Ollie then.'

‘Ollie?'

‘He's going through a hard time. It'd be nice. Clear the air. He's suffering.'

‘Sitting in a poncy flat in Kensington writing a novel?'

‘Of course he is.' Lately she had become more fond of Ollie.

He might be behaving stupidly but she knew, in a way, what he was going through.

Ken looked down at his socks. There was a hole in the toe.

‘That aunt of his, remember? When I put a damp-proof course in her house and she couldn't remember who I was and tried to tip me?'

Ann smiled. ‘You should've taken it. We were broke.'

For a split second she didn't know if he was going to smile. It could have gone either way. Marriage has many such moments.

But it was all right. He grinned fleetingly.

Al stood at the window. Outside he heard the clackety-clack of high heels, of women with somewhere to go.

Ollie paused, then typed on.

He thought of his wife, who had demanded so much; and of his mistress, who had demanded so little. He poured himself another Scotch.

The phone rang. Ollie got up but by the time he got there it had stopped.

Ken had flunked it.

‘. . . and the baby girl was born and there was much rejoicing. But nobody noticed the Black Fairy arriving, and suddenly, amongst all the music and laughter, she started cackling and everyone grew silent with horror . . .'

Viv paused. Rosie's eyes were closing; Daisy was sucking her thumb. She looked around the room. They had bandaged up
their teddies again. She went on reading: ‘
and she shouted: “You've made your promise, and tomorrow I'll be back and then your baby girl will be mine! And I'll take her into my tall tower in the forest and I'll lock her up . . .”'

Both the children had fallen asleep. Viv closed the book.

It was the next evening. Viv sat in Ollie's old dressing gown, correcting exercise books. She sniffed, and blew her nose. Her bones ached.

In front of the fireplace was the electric fire; it was not worth lighting logs for one. Beside her was a tin of potato salad; from time to time she put her fork into it and ate some abstractedly.

The doorbell rang. With a grunt, she got up and padded out.

‘Ken!'

‘Hello,' he said. ‘Just thought I'd . . .'

‘Come in, it's freezing.'

He came into the living room, lighting a cigarette as he did so. His hand was trembling, but she told herself this was just from cold.

‘Where's Ann?' she asked.

‘At some dinner-do.'

Viv laughed. ‘They'll be turning her into a Rotarian soon.'

Ken didn't reply. He stood in front of the electric fire, his back to her.

‘Want a beer?' she asked.

‘Please.'

She fetched a can from the fridge. She felt an urgent need to chatter. As she found a glass she said: ‘Whatever will they do without her?'

‘Yes.'

‘They'll say, just like a woman, they never stay. Too many complications.'

Ken nodded.

‘Men can be unreliable too,' said Viv, passing him the glass.

‘Look, Viv –'

‘How's the building work going?'

‘Fine. Look –'

She grabbed the tin. ‘Have some potato salad. I'll get you another fork because I've got a cold.'

‘No thanks.'

She sat down at the table, indicating the tin. ‘One of the secret and deeply satisfying pleasures of living alone.' She took a mouthful. ‘Do you approve of what Ann and I bought at Mothercare?'

He took another drag of the cigarette and threw it into the grate. ‘I've got to talk to you.'

‘Let's talk about Ann and the baby.'

‘I want to talk about me.'

She smiled. Her hands were clammy. ‘A bad idea.'

‘I must.'

‘Look, we agreed –'

He shouted: ‘I'm fed up with agreeing with everybody!'

His voice was so loud that they instinctively glanced at the stairs. He moved over to the door and closed it. He didn't go back to the fireplace, he walked over to the sink. This was a bad sign; people always stood at her sink when they wanted to tell her something unwelcome. She wished she had a fever and that she was hallucinating this. Then she would wake up and he would never have spoken.

He said: ‘All my life I've been grown-up. Well behaved. I was the oldest little boy you ever saw. I was like a little old man, looking after my mother, swotting for grammar school. I wanted them to be proud of me because I was all they'd got, and if I was boring they certainly didn't notice because they were my parents.'

She nodded. ‘I know.' She relaxed slightly; perhaps he was just going to talk like this.

‘Then along came Ann,' he said, ‘and I felt I had to look after her, make her loved. Her father – well, you know . . .'

‘Yes.'

‘He never really loved her. Or that's what she said. I didn't know why, then, of course, nor did she.' He paused, and drank a little. ‘And them splitting up. I had to be grown-up for her, I
wanted
to be grown-up, I could do that. I wanted to build her a home and look after her and give her children.' He stopped.

She waited.

‘I worked away at my job, even though I hated it. I did it for Ann. And I didn't mind, I never admitted . . . well, I suppose I just thought in terms of her, and us.' He paused, and pushed a dirty saucepan further down into the water. ‘And if something was missing in all this, with Ann and, you know, everything, well, I didn't have the words for it. Not till lately.' He inspected the submerged plates. ‘With you. Suddenly I felt real.'

He stopped and looked up at her. She had never seen his face so naked – not even in their hotel room. She said: ‘Having a baby's not going to solve everything for you and Ann, it's not going to make you really happy. Only you can.' She took a breath and moved aside the empty tin. ‘You two, you're like a laid fire that's never been lit because it might waste the fuel, and you've got to insulate the house first. No house is ever really insulated.' She gestured around. ‘This one certainly isn't. But Ollie and I've had some terrific blazes.' She stood up, grimacing as her back ached. ‘So off you go.'

He stared into the sink. Finally he said: ‘I want to stay.'

‘Ken.'

He looked up. ‘I've been trying. I've stayed away, haven't I, all these weeks? I've stopped myself phoning you. And, I mean, well, Ann's job. I've learnt a lot. I'm pleased she's successful and a year ago I would've been different.'

‘Because you were all macho.'

‘No! Just responsible.' He paused. ‘We're getting on very well. It's just –'

‘Don't say it.'

He said, in a low voice: ‘I want you so much.'

She put down her fork. ‘Fine,' she said suddenly. ‘So we'll run off together, and I'll have the baby with you and we'll leave Ann, and I'll sell this house and give Ollie the girls.'

‘No!' He stared at her.

She spoke gently. ‘You don't want that, do you?'

He shook his head.

‘But you do want me.
OK
. Let's fuck.'

He stared at her. She went over to her and took his hand. ‘I know we're not in a nice hotel and me in my suspenders, but
still.' She pulled him towards the sofa. ‘And there's a bit of marmalade here somewhere . . .' She searched amongst the cushions, flinging away the old Sunday papers and various toys. She found the sticky place. ‘Ugh. And I'm awfully fat and I've got stretch-marks, want to see them?' She started struggling with the cord of Ollie's dressing gown. ‘And a stinking cold and Rosie'll be needing her medicine in . . .', she looked at her watch, ‘. . . half an hour.' She grabbed him and pulled him down on to the sofa. ‘Ow!' She was sitting on a toy lorry; she flung it on the floor. ‘And I must have a postcoital period correcting all those books, but still, come on, let's have a bash.'

But Ken had pulled away. He went over to the sink and stood there, leaning on the draining board, his head bowed.

Ann had removed the partition between her own small room and the rest of the office; it was more companionable that way. She could keep in touch with what was happening. Besides, it gave her pleasure to see the daily changing colour of everybody's clothes against the boring magnolia walls.

Gone were Derek's golfing trophies. In their place were an assortment of plants she had either bought or been given by Viv – offspring from the leggy windowsill collection. She had also bought three Van Gogh prints – the chair, the sunflowers and the bed, all of which moved her by their homeliness. Whatever her sister thought, she was not entirely unvisual.

However, there were disadvantages to the open-plan concept. It was nearly one o'clock when, with surprise, she was given a note by Trish. Scrawled on the back of a dry-cleaning receipt, it said:
To the Manageress. I humbly crave a moment of your time. I am at Customer Window 3
.

She looked across the office. Behind the customer's window she saw Ken's face.

Trish let him into the office and he came across to her desk. He stood in front of her, his head hanging.

‘I can see that you're got a busy schedule ahead of you, maybe lunch with a Rotarian, I heard you went to an ever-so-important do last night, and I'm just a humble working chap,
but I was wondering if I might beg a few moments of your time.'

She blushed. Everyone in the office was staring at them; Janine was sniggering.

‘Quick,' she hissed. ‘Let's get out.'

It was pouring with rain but she didn't mind. They sat in the car, eating Big Macs. He had brought a bottle of champagne and, parked in a side street facing a railway bridge and an expired Hillman Imp, they drank it out of plastic cups.

‘I meant us to have a picnic,' he said, as the rain rattled on the roof.

‘I don't care,' she said truthfully and sucked her fingers. He passed her his slivers of gherkin.

Afterwards he drove on.

‘Where're we going?' she asked.

‘Ssh.'

He drew up outside a hotel. It was a modern place, with tubs of chrysanthemums and multi-national flags.

‘What's happening?' she asked.

‘It's called having a long lunch-hour,' he replied. ‘Managers do it.' He got out of the car and opened the door for her with a flourish.

‘We can't!' she said.

‘We can.'

For practically the first time in fifteen years of married life he couldn't manage to rise to the occasion. They struggled, their naked limbs bumping.

Finally they admitted defeat and collapsed helplessly on the sheets.

‘I do love you,' she gasped.

‘You can't.'

‘I do.'

‘Us men are just useful for reproductive purposes,' said Al. ‘Otherwise we're redundant.'

Ollie frowned, re-read this and typed it out with a row of x's. I'm writing a story, he thought, not a thesis.

He started again.
Al stormed into the room and slammed the door. ‘You don't want me any more!'
he shouted.

Ann sat down in the living room and gave Viv a carrier-bag.

‘Something I've been knitting,' she said.

Viv opened the bag and pulled out a woollen object in multicoloured stripes. ‘Gosh,' she said. ‘It's lovely, but won't it be a bit big?'

‘It's not for the baby, silly,' said Ann. She held it against Viv. ‘It's for you.'

It was an enormous cardigan.

‘Your weird colours,' said Ann.

Viv was carrying her books to the car. Behind her she heard hurrying steps. Harold caught her up and took the books from her arms.

‘When I first met Ollie,' said Viv, ‘he used to do that.'

Harold said meaningfully: ‘He was still a gentleman then.'

Viv reached her car. ‘Then again, I wasn't eight months gone.'

She paused for a moment beside the car door. Outside the school gates a crowd of children waited at the bus stop. Amongst them were a group of sixth-formers – Yvonne, Eileen and the rest. They were talking to a very pregnant Tracey, who had long ago left school and must have come to the bus stop for a chat.

Harold remarked: ‘Tracey's showing off again.' He spoke with solemnity: ‘Girls nowadays are strangers to shame.'

Viv paused, then opened the car door. Harold put her books in the front, but she moved them to the back. ‘Sit in here a moment, Harry,' she said, patting the passenger seat. ‘Please.'

Surprised, Harold climbed in. For a moment she couldn't think how to begin. She gazed, for inspiration, at the mustard-coloured bricks of the Science Block. ‘It's about me and Ollie. He's not such a shit.'

‘Oh no?'

‘I've been longing to tell you. You're my friend.' Sunlight shone on the hideous yellow bricks; soon it would be dark by four. She said: ‘It's not just Ollie who's been having an affair.'

‘No?'

‘I have. Hence . . .' She patted her stomach. ‘And I'm giving it to my lover and his wife.'

Harold's mouth fell open. ‘You're not!'

‘Don't tell anyone,' she whispered. ‘But that's why I'll be back next term.'

‘But the baby –'

‘Don't talk about that. I just wanted you to know that it's not all Ollie's fault.'

Harold was still staring at her. Then he rallied. ‘You wanton hussy!' he said.

‘I'm not,' said Viv, automatically. Then she realized, and smiled: ‘All right, I am.'